


Now, Here, With You

by riselioness



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Deserts, F/M, Tatooine, gazing out across the horizon, sabewan, sobiwan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:22:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23825257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/riselioness/pseuds/riselioness
Summary: On one of her visits to Obi-Wan on Tatooine, Sabé contemplates how far they've come.
Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi/Sabé
Comments: 6
Kudos: 27
Collections: May the 4th Be With You Star Wars Fanworks Exchange 2020





	Now, Here, With You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Meilan_Firaga](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meilan_Firaga/gifts).



> For Meilan_Firaga. This is the first time I've taken part in a challenge and I'm aware this probably isn't exactly what you were looking for, but I hope you like it anyway :)

Early evenings were Sabé’s favourite part of the day. At this time the worst of the day’s heat had subsided, but the night’s chill had not yet set in. On evenings like this, when she had finished her share of the day’s chores and Obi-Wan was still out on one of his visits, she liked to climb one of the rocky outcrops behind his hut and sit looking out over the Dune Sea.

A true child of Naboo, she would never have imagined she would one day learn to be comfortable in a desert. The first time she had encountered Tatooine, escaping from the Trade Federation all those years ago, she had felt intimidated by the barren landscape, so different from Naboo’s lushness. When Obi-Wan followed Luke Skywalker to begin his long exile there, she had been horrified at the thought of him living in such a hostile environment, and when she arrived on the first of her visits to him three years later, there was little to change her mind.

However, through the years and over her too few, too short visits to the little hut in the Jundland Wastes, Sabé had to some extent made her peace with the desert, and had even at times come to appreciate it.

Partly it was because when she was on Tatooine she had plenty of time to contemplate her environment, and learn its ways. Partly it was because she had learnt to adjust to it, to move with its rhythms rather than fight against them. And partly it was simply because he was there.

By now, Sabé knew their little corner of Tatooine as well as she had known her childhood home in the Lake Country of Naboo. She knew the rhythms of the rises and falls in temperature, the changing patterns of shadows like she’d once known the winds and tides of Lake Benaco.

She and Obi-Wan would rise early, when the comfortingly stuffy warmth of the hut was preferable to the chill outside. After breakfast they would open the doors and windows to let the air in, and do some of the more physical indoor and outdoor chores.

Later in the morning, if they were both at home, they would close the doors and windows again to shut out the rising heat, and sit in a particular shaded corner until the temperature rose too much, and the suns were too high to cast much shadow. Then they would retreat indoors and rest while the suns were at its height.

When the shadows had lengthened sufficiently, they would move outside again to shelter in a cove in the rocks on the other side of the hut. The heat was still bad even in the shade, but they were protected from the glare of suns and sand.

Finally, as sunset neared, the temperature lowered enough for them to be more comfortable outside. They would sometimes play a game of seeing how long they could last before going inside, and by this time the warm stuffiness of the hut was welcome.

Sabé thought about the temperature a lot.

When her friends - or at least those few who knew where she disappeared to during her months-long absences - asked what it was like on Tatooine, she simply told them that it was brutally hot during the day, and bitterly cold at night. This was true, of course, but it was an oversimplification that missed out all the subtleties, and didn’t do anything to convey the extent to which their days were dominated by consideration of how to adapt to the conditions.

On this particular evening, Sabé sat with her hands braced on the rocks behind her and her legs stretched out in front, one of Obi-Wan’s cloaks hanging half off her shoulders and pooling around her. It was cool enough to wear it properly, but she always enjoyed the first chill of the evening and liked to wait for a bit before wrapping it around her.

On her finger she wore the slim silver wedding band that when she was back on Coruscant or Alderaan she wore on a chain round her neck, hidden under her clothes. A very small number of her friends - Bail, Yané, and two or three others - knew about her marriage to Obi-Wan, but overall it was one of many secrets she was keeping.

It was generally believed - and while Sabé hadn’t confirmed it, she had said nothing to deny it - that Sabé was a widow. This was a convenient explanation (if one were necessary, which Sabé would dispute) for her complete lack of any kind of love life. It was also a useful backstory in case anyone happened to see her ring, or in case Sabé dropped her guard and said something that could be incriminating - she rarely even came close to this, but it always paid to be careful.

Sabé spied, coming over a dune in the middle distance, the dark shape that she knew without needing to see clearly was Obi-Wan on his eopie, returning from one of his regular, but infrequent, visits to the Lars homestead. Occasionally Sabé would come with him, but Obi-Wan’s relationship with the Lars was strained at best, and bringing along someone whose presence wasn’t strictly necessary (even though Owen and Beru both knew she could be trusted) was an additional source of tension that could be avoided.

On the occasions that she did visit the homestead, Owen would only let her in the house when Luke was away, or already in bed. If he was at home she had to wait at a distance - near enough to see that Luke was there and healthy, so she could report back to Bail, but too far away for any kind of interaction. Only once had she been allowed to meet him, when he was about ten, and she tried not to think about that too often - it had been too painful a joy.

Sabé’s gaze followed Obi-Wan as he approached, coming in and out of view with the rises and falls of the dunes. Passing the foot of the bluff he held up a hand in greeting, but didn’t pause. Instead, he continued on his way to the outbuilding that served as a stable for the eopie. First he would feed and water it and make sure it was settled, before heading up to join her.

After a short while he emerged from the outbuilding, and was soon springing up the rocks towards her, still almost as sprightly as when they had first met during the invasion of Naboo. She was already smiling as he crested the rocks. He paused for a moment, smiling down at her, before settling himself down beside her.

She tilted her head upwards for his kiss. “Hello.”

“Hello,” he replied. “Miss me?”

“Always.” She leant against him and rested her head on his shoulder. She hadn’t, she never did, but it was their game to pretend they missed each other during the day when one of them was away without the other.

In reality, during the years they spent apart in separate star systems, they missed each other too deeply and too painfully to miss each other on Tatooine, when they knew they would be reunited by nightfall. But during their time together, they liked to pretend that that was the most time they would have to spend apart.

They sat for a while in comfortable silence, watching for the creatures that started to emerge from their day’s sleep around this time. They were never numerous, but here and there a twitch of movement on the edge of sight marked the presence of one of the small rodents and lizards that made their home in this corner of the Dune Sea.

“How’s Owen?”

Obi-Wan made a face.

“Again? I thought he would have got over whatever it was last time.”

“Hmm. I think he had. But he’s been having trouble with Luke. Oh, nothing serious,” he added, sensing her spike of concern. “But he’s been talking about the Academy again.”

“Oh.” When Luke had first mentioned it, the Lars, Obi-Wan and Sabé had all thought it was a boyish fancy. But he’d been raising the subject regularly, and they were coming to realise his intentions were serious. “What did you say?”

“Nothing, really.” Obi-Wan sighed. “He’s fourteen, he won’t be going anywhere any time soon. But it won’t be long before they’ll have to start discussing it seriously. And I don’t know what we’ll do when it comes to that.”

Neither Sabé nor Obi-Wan were keen on the idea of Luke training at the Imperial Academy, though they understood its appeal for Luke as a way off the planet. Owen and Beru weren’t in favour either, but that was more because they needed his labour, and (although Owen probably didn’t realise it) they would miss his company if he went.

Obi-Wan suspected that the Lars would eventually give in to Luke’s petitions, and didn’t know what he would do when it came to it. The Lars accepted that Obi-Wan’s role was to protect Luke, and there had been times when Obi-Wan had persuaded them towards one course of action or another, but none of them really knew how far his influence would extend if it came to a major disagreement like this.

The suns were setting now, the day’s heat seeping out from sand and rock. Sabé shrugged Obi-Wan’s cloak back onto her shoulders, and gathered it round herself. When she looked across at Obi-Wan, he was still frowning at the middle distance. “What is it?”

He didn’t respond for a moment, then seemed to hear her. He blinked, and shook his head. “Nothing, really.”

“Obi-Wan.”

He nudged around a pebble with the toe of his boot. “I was just thinking about when I was Luke’s age, and how I saw my life going.

“Back then, if I’d thought about where I might be in my fifties…well, I don’t know where I would have seen myself. Maybe I wouldn’t even have expected to live that long - many Jedi don’t. But I certainly wouldn’t have imagined myself…here.” He gestured imprecisely at the desert that stretched out around them.

Obi-Wan sighed again, more deeply this time, and turned to Sabé. “I’m turning into an old man,” he lamented, only half joking.

Sabé contemplated her husband. She couldn’t deny that the years hung heavily on his shoulders, and there was more grey in his hair and beard than there had been on her last visit. She reached up a hand to cup his face, her thumb tracing the deep creases at the corners of his eye.

“It’s a long time since either of us were young,” she said softly. They were both older than their years, and there was no point denying it. Then she patted his cheek. “But you’ve got a lot of life left in you yet, Kenobi.”

He smiled, a little sadly, she thought. “Maybe.”

She shivered. The night’s chill was creeping in, and soon it would be time to go indoors.

Obi-Wan looked at her for a moment, then shrugged off his cloak. Leaning first to one side, then the other, he pulled it out from under him with none of the grace that usually accompanied his movements. “What are you doing?” she asked him.

He didn’t answer, but knelt up towards her and tried to wrap his cloak round her, on top of the one she was already wearing. “Hey!” she protested. She swatted him away, but he ignored her, laughing as he tried to dodge her flailing arms. “Hey!” Eventually he gave in, and settled back down.

“What was all that about?” she asked, as he awkwardly shuffled back into his cloak.

“You’re getting cold,” Obi-Wan said, with an air of mock innocence.

Sabé surveyed him as he made a vain attempt to brush the sand off his cloak. She forgot how much she loved him, sometimes, when she was on Tatooine. She would grow accustomed to being with him, settle into a contentment she never really felt anywhere else. And then he would do something, or say something, or she would simply just look at him, and her love for him would suddenly swell up inside her until she felt her heart would burst.

Right now, sitting at his side in this arid wasteland, she could hardly believe that after all these years, and everything that had strived to keep them apart, they could be together. It might only be for a few months at a time, and it might be nothing like what she’d once dreamed of long ago, but she had so many times thought she’d lost him forever, and here they were.

Her eyes traced Obi-Wan's wrinkled brow, the straight line of his nose and the curve of his lips. He looked up from adjusting his cloak, caught her gaze and raised an eyebrow. “What?”

“You were right,” she said.

The corners of his mouth quirked up in the grin that could still make her heart skip a beat. “Oh?” He shifted position so he was angled towards her. “In what way, might I enquire?”

Sabé leaned closer. “I am getting cold,” she murmured. She stopped just before their lips met. “So warm me up.”

His fingertips, warm and calloused, rested lightly under her chin as he whispered his reply.

“Don't mind if I do.”


End file.
